Positron emission tomography (PET) is a molecular imaging technology that is increasingly used for detection of disease. PET imaging systems create images based on the distribution of positron-emitting isotopes in the tissue of a patient. The isotopes are typically administered to a patient by injection of PET radiotracer probe molecules that comprise a positron-emitting isotope, (e.g. carbon-11, nitrogen-13, oxygen-15, or fluorine 18), covalently attached to a molecule that is readily metabolized or localized in the body or that chemically binds to receptor sites within the body. For PET radiotracer probes the short half-lives of the positron emitting isotopes require that synthesis, analysis and purification of the probes are completed rapidly.
Carbon-11 (C-11) cyanide is a highly valuable precursor molecule for PET radiotracer synthesis by chemical transformations such as displacement and cross-coupling reactions. The resulting C-11 cyano-compounds can also be converted to various functional groups such as amines, amides, carboxylic acids, which are abundant in various biological substrates, drugs and radiotracers. Various methods for synthesizing C-11 cyanide are known in the art. However, conventional C-11 cyanide production systems that are currently commercially available are large in size, not stand-alone or not cost-effective.
Moreover, due to the short half-life (20 min) of C-11, a short production time is required. However, the production time involved in typical C-11 cyanide production systems of the prior art leave little remaining time for useful analytic purposes.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop smaller or miniaturized systems and devices that are capable of processing small quantities of molecular probes. In addition, there is a need for such systems that are capable of expediting chemical processing to reduce the overall processing or cycle times, simplifying the chemical processing procedures, and at the same time, provide the flexibility to produce a wide range of probes, biomarkers and labeled drugs, or drug analogs, inexpensively.